Minimally invasive medical techniques are intended to reduce the amount of extraneous tissue that is damaged during diagnostic or surgical procedures, thereby reducing patient recovery time, discomfort, and deleterious side effects. One effect of minimally invasive surgery, for example, is reduced post-operative hospital recovery times. Because the average hospital stay for a standard open surgery is typically significantly longer than the average stay for an analogous minimally invasive surgery, increased use of minimally invasive techniques could save millions of dollars in hospital costs each year. While many of the surgeries performed each year in the United States could potentially be performed in a minimally invasive manner, only a portion of the current surgeries use these advantageous techniques due to limitations in minimally invasive surgical instruments and the additional surgical training involved in mastering them.
Minimally invasive robotic surgical or telesurgical systems have been developed to increase a surgeon's dexterity and avoid some of the limitations on traditional minimally invasive techniques. In telesurgery, the surgeon uses some form of remote control (e.g., a servomechanism, or the like) to manipulate surgical instrument movements, rather than directly holding and moving the instruments by hand. In telesurgery systems, the surgeon can be provided with an image of the surgical site at a surgical workstation. While viewing a two- or three-dimensional image of the surgical site on a display, the surgeon performs the surgical procedures on the patient by manipulating master control devices, which in turn control motion of the servo-mechanically operated slave instruments.
The servomechanism used for telesurgery will often accept input from two master controllers (one for each of the surgeon's hands) and may include two or more robotic arms on each of which a surgical instrument is mounted. Operative communication between master controllers and associated robotic arm and instrument assemblies is typically achieved through a control system. The control system typically includes at least one processor that relays input commands from the master controllers to the associated robotic arm and instrument assemblies and back from the instrument and arm assemblies to the associated master controllers in the case of, for example, force feedback or the like. One example of a robotic surgical system is the DA VINCI® system commercialized by Intuitive Surgical, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif.
A variety of structural arrangements have been used to support the surgical instrument at the surgical site during robotic surgery. The driven linkage or “slave” is often called a robotic surgical manipulator, and exemplary linkage arrangements for use as a robotic surgical manipulator during minimally invasive robotic surgery are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,594,912 (filed Sep. 30, 2004), 6,758,843 (filed Apr. 26, 2002), 6,246,200 (filed Aug. 3, 1999), and 5,800,423 (filed Jul. 20, 1995), the full disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. These linkages often manipulate an instrument holder to which an instrument having a shaft is mounted. Such a manipulator structure can include a parallelogram linkage portion that generates motion of the instrument holder that is limited to rotation about a pitch axis that intersects a remote center of manipulation located along the length of the instrument shaft. Such a manipulator structure can also include a yaw joint that generates motion of the instrument holder that is limited to rotation about a yaw axis that is perpendicular to the pitch axis and that also intersects the remote center of manipulation. By aligning the remote center of manipulation with the incision point to the internal surgical site (for example, with a trocar or cannula at an abdominal wall during laparoscopic surgery), an end effector of the surgical instrument can be positioned safely by moving the proximal end of the shaft using the manipulator linkage without imposing potentially hazardous forces against the abdominal wall. Alternative manipulator structures are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,702,805 (filed Nov. 9, 2000), 6,676,669 (filed Jan. 16, 2002), 5,855,583 (filed Nov. 22, 1996), 5,808,665 (filed Sep. 9, 1996), 5,445,166 (filed Apr. 6, 1994), and 5,184,601 (filed Aug. 5, 1991), the full disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
While the new telesurgical systems and device have proven highly effective and advantageous, still further improvements would be desirable. In general, it would be desirable to provide improved structures and systems for performing minimally invasive robotic surgery. More specifically, it would be beneficial to enhance the efficiency and ease of use of these systems. For example, it would be particularly beneficial to improve the range of motion provided by the robotic surgical manipulator without imposing potentially hazardous forces against the abdominal wall.